


Ocean View

by CAPSING



Category: Deadpool (Comics), Marvel, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Animals, Depression, Gen, Pre-Slash, Self-Harm, Surprise-Marine-Life Peter, Tiger-Shark Deadpool, the most violent Deadpool I've written to date
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-21
Updated: 2015-09-21
Packaged: 2018-04-22 14:37:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4839143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CAPSING/pseuds/CAPSING
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a shark in the waters. He's not doing well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. what's it like

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a lighthearted drabble full of puns and fun that turned out to be a dark interpretation about the implications of long-term confinement.
> 
> So, you know, just another typical Tuesday for me.

There's an intruder in the water.

There's _prey._

His teeth clench, part of them digging into his gums.

"I know you're there. I can _smell_ you."

"And how's that working for you 'till now?" a voice drawls, chipper – but he can't detect where from. There are humans tapping on the glass from _outside_ , throwing his radar and hearing off and annoying him further. Mammals, Deadpool thinks, are a nuisance in every plane and form.

"If you'll show yourself now, I'll kill you real quick." He bares three lines of jagged teeth at the fake rocks.

"I'll take my chances."

Slamming his body against the rocks, he turns to crush them with his jaws; they crumble, taste foul in his mouth, sending crude grains grating against his gills.

By the end of the day the water is murky and the intruder is gone.

*

 

Deadpool lives a simple life.

Deadpool does not like simplicity.

When he was young and weak, the world was complicated, reality complex, infinite details balanced on one core principal – kill or be killed. That's where (most of) the scars are from; reminders of failed attempts at his life. The scar on his right fin from a scuttle with a swordfish; the chunk gone from his tail into the ravenous mouth of an adult; dozen others hide between the lines of his body. They are reminders he survived; as he grew larger, they turned smaller.

There was a time, _before_ , a time he knows was true but can't grasp why. Deadpool does not recalls the events that led to the long scar above his left eye; there is a gaping hole in his memory – and the blurry past aligns itself into a small world. So small, with scents that smelt _wrong_ , so _wrong_ and constant on his weary mind, and prey – smooth-scaled, helpless prey – _everywhere._

*

 

Deadpool ate the prey.

All of it.

Twice.

The bloody occurrences at the pool area earn him his nickname, not that he cares much for it. Sharp long rocks stab from above, and he pulls at them with his strong jaws, effortlessly pulling them in.

He slams into the invisible limits of the universe countless times, rushing back and again above discarded nets at the bottom of his world, a desolate surface that offers nothing. Reality is unwavering and the water in his gills is as poisonous and choking as the nothingness above the surface.

(That's where the other scars are from.)

*

 

The intruder comes and goes as it pleases; at times it chooses to remain quiet, and at others it blabbers until Deadpool scrapes the ground with his teeth to make the sounds go away.

 

Deadpool doesn't notice when it leaves.

*

 

When Deadpool's bored, and that's all the time, really – he circles around his world. At first he did it to explore, to understand – and now he circles again and again and again and again until the light – the cold light that never warms his skin – shines outside and there's dead fish to catch.

*

 

There are times he doesn't bother completing the circle, does not turn his tail. The limits bash his skull with all their might.

*

 

Deadpool doesn't feel anything living moving in the water around him.

He hasn't been feeling anything, not for a very long time.

*

 

"Name's Peter." It tells him one night, after the world is rattled by another one of Deadpool's attempts to bring any form of change to the present. "What's yours?"

Names are silly things. Deadpool never had a name _before_ , before the Small World, and he still managed.

"I don’t talk with my meals," he grits through the pounding in his cranium.

"Must be pretty lonely," the voice says. "Considering everything here is a meal for you."

Deadpool ignores it and smashes against the barriers until the water are bloody; then, he can't smell the intruder anymore.

*

 

"You know you can't break it, can you?" the voice tells him.

"How did you get out, then?" Deadpool asks before he's even aware he did so, still woozy from the last ordeal.

"I have my ways."

"Tell me," he snaps.

"Ask nicely, and maybe I will."

"When I'll catch you," Deadpool promises, "I'll make sure to chew you slowly. Then, I'll swallow you with water still going through your fucking gills."

"If I had bones, they'd be shaking."

*

 

"Do you even know what's outside?" the voice asks.

"It can't be worse than here."

*

 

There are times Deadpool isn't sure there _is_ a voice.

He headbutts the thoughts out.

Sometimes it even works.

*****

 

"Why are you here?" Deadpool asks in one of the quiet nights, when the intruder is there but inexplicably opts for silence.

"I'm bored," it answers, "and you're the only fish here that doesn't think I'm going to eat it. There's a hammer-shark couple of tanks away, but Thor speaks really weird. I don't think he's from around here."

Deadpool floats, tilted, just barely above the ground. He has been feeling unwell through several meals has passed.

"Talk, then."

It talks.

It talks about a tiny water tank and dank waters; of tasting human hands as they passed him from place to place; of useless trash thrown to him from above under the scrutiny of what felt like hundreds; of blinding sudden bursts of lights that attack at random, when he tries to eat, to sleep, to hide; of dull dead prey and the overbearing gurgling chatter of bubbles.

"Bubbles could be a good name for you," it teases. "Bubbly and ready to burst at any moment."

"Name's Deadpool", Deadpool says, because Bubbles would not be a good name for him, even if names matter little.

"Hello, Deadpool," colour explodes on his retinas as a creature forms in front of him, like a coral reef at daylight, appendages spread out like rays of sunlight.  The blue is so deep he can almost feel fresh salt water brushing the pain away, swirling and shifting with the vibrant red of a fresh kill.

Naturally, he charges.

 

Then it all turns black.

 

*

 

"You shouldn't have done that," the voice speaks, sounding angry.

After days without so much as a peep, Deadpool raises from the bottom of his tank, slowly starting to circle it, mindful of his route.

"You're back."

"Friends don't eat each other."

"Friends?" the word is strange as it scampers out from between his teeth. "I don't have _friends_." He states.

"No," the voice says, "I guess you don't."

*

 

"You shouldn't have done that," the voice speaks from a place far away.

"It doesn't matter." Deadpool answers through blood and loose teeth, the fake rocks digging into his underbelly.

"It does."

The silence stretches, though time feels endless each day anew.

"Aren't you going to say anything?" Deadpool asks, because silence is all he had for days now, and though he does not understand it fully, it feels as if it shrinks his world to close upon him until he's completely still.

"I don't usually talk to those who'd eat me for dinner."

"I've already had dinner." Deadpool pauses. "Besides, I don't eat your kind, Peter. It makes my stomach hurt."

 

It's an obvious lie.

 

"How many tries it took you to figure that one out?"

 

Peter takes the bait anyway.


	2. in the pickle jar?

Peter has two strengths – his memory and his grip.

His memory used to be filled with nothingness, with boredom, with silence.

Then with fear.

Then it was painted with danger, with thrilling waves of excitement, with the sensation of his skin shifting before he was even aware of it, his limbs expanding and shrinking with their own minds. The vibrations in the water alongside him as he brushed against death.

 

Peter has memories, now, and he grips them tight and refuses to let go


	3. I'll loosen it up for you

Nguyễn Thi Thanh Hà had had a long day.

The strap of her purse broke when she was walking down the street, and her favorite pocket mirror broke. At work she sat through another useless board meeting, a glorified shouting match paid by the company. In said purse lurks her cell, which is bursting with unanswered texts, along with the hundreds of unread messages awaiting in her e-mail. Her migraine was relentless throughout the day, and her back is killing her. She pulls her hair up to tie it in a bun, and it smells of cigarettes, a scent that stuck during her first cigarette-break in four and a half months. She ran out of shampoo just this morning, so she'll have to bear with it. Unwillingly, her fingers twitch, already longing to hold another smoke.

The subway's speakers cackle up as the train comes to a sudden halt in one of the tunnels, announcing of an unexpected delay at schedule, apologizing and not providing any useful information. There's a minor uproar around the trailer as weary men and women edge each other on with complaints and demands that wouldn't help any of them.

With a dead battery, Thanh Hà sighs and picks up a discarded newspaper from the seat to her left. She sorts it out and folds it back proper to inspect the headlines – the newspaper is two days old, practically _history_ , but Thanh Hà is willing to use anything as an excuse to avoid interacting with her fellow despairing train-raiders.

The upper part of the front page covered with the smug face of Tony Stark, surrounded by soldiers and shaking the hand of a man donned in a suit; the paper (which Thanh Hà thinks Stark probably owns) announces Stark just secured the financial stability of the US. Thinking of her student loans, Thanh Hà snorts and scans the rest of the page. Sports, celebrity weddings, an editorial about the last political mishap ( _read more at page eight_ ) – page after page, the paper proves to be a waste of precious ink. She's about to give up as a title catches her eye; 

 

Abruptly, the train begins moving again.

Thanh Hà rubs her eyes tiredly, setting the paper aside.

                 

She can't wait to get back home. 

**Author's Note:**

> And while we're here, [ check out this infographic](http://ripetungi.com/wp-content/uploads/Shark-Attack-Stop-Finning-Infographic.png). [[Source ](http://jchernov.com/post/46445834470/man-bites-shark)]
> 
> This was a different take on Deadpool because I can't see a shark having a sense of humour, so all that's left is the killer intent and mental instability.  
> Apologies for the spoon-feeding, just to clear things up – Deadpool wasn't actually hit by a boat, but captured for the sole purpose of showing him off at Sea-Universe  
> Of course, this work is purely fictional and in no way related to any real life events; any resemblance is merely a coincidence and not at all intended.
> 
> (If anyone's wondering, Peter sneaked into Deadpool's tank through the filters.)


End file.
